Aspects of the present disclosure generally relate to wireless communications. Specifically, the aspects relate to techniques of interference determination using adaptive energy detection.
Wireless communications networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services, such as voice, video, broadcast, packet data, etc. These wireless networks can be multiple-access networks, capable of supporting multiple users by sharing the available network resources. Examples of such multiple-access networks include: Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) networks, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) networks, Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) networks, Orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA) networks, and Single-Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) networks.
A wireless communications network can include a number of base stations, NodeBs, eNodeBs, etc., which can support communication for a number of user equipment (UE) devices. A UE can communicate with an eNodeB via the downlink and uplink. The downlink (or forward link) refers to the communication link from the eNodeB to the UE, and the uplink (or reverse link) refers to the communication link from the UE to the eNodeB.
To supplement conventional base stations, additional restricted power or restricted coverage base stations, referred to as small-coverage base stations or cells, can be deployed to provide more robust wireless coverage to mobile devices. For example, wireless relay stations and low-power base stations (e.g., which can be commonly referred to as Home eNodeBs or Home eNBs, collectively referred to as H(e)NBs, femto cells, pico cells, etc.) can be deployed for incremental capacity growth, richer user experience, in-building or other specific geographic coverage. Such low-power or small-coverage base stations (e.g., the power relative to macro network base stations or cells) can be connected to the Internet via broadband connection (e.g., digital subscriber line (DSL) router, cable or modem, etc.), which can provide the backhaul link to the mobile operator's network.
Thus, for example, the small-coverage base stations can be deployed in user homes to provide mobile network access to one or more devices via the broadband connection. As deployment of such base stations is unplanned, low-power base stations can interfere with one another where multiple stations are deployed within a close vicinity of one another.
Operation of wireless devices in certain portions of a shared or unlicensed spectrum may experience interference from another radio access technology (RAT) using the spectrum. For example, LTE (or some other wireless wide area network technology) and another access technology (e.g., one specified by IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi), 802.15.1 (Bluetooth), 802.15.4 (ZigBee), or some other wireless local area network technology) may operate in an unlicensed band. Interference from the second RAT on a signal of the first RAT within the shared communication channel may degrade the signal quality of first RAT signal. While solutions like filters may be used to reduce interference, such filters often rely on inaccurate channel estimates and may also reduce the signal strength of the desired signal, decreasing the signal-to-noise ratio.
In view of the foregoing, it may be understood that there may be significant challenges associated with the operation of wireless devices in a shared and unlicensed communications spectrum.